[ASA] Call for nominations to WiA Steering Committee

[John O'Byrne]

Women in Astronomy Chapter of the ASA - Steering Committee Elections.

The Women in Astronomy Chapter of the ASA aims to promote and assist the career development of women in the Australian astronomy community.
The primary goal of the Chapter has been to recommend actions that will improve the working environment for women working in astronomy.
This year the Women in Astronomy Chapter will become the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity in Astronomy (IDEA) Chapter and will start to address
broader diversity issues in our community.

The WIA Chapter has been active for over six years, and has organised activities that have been beneficial to both men and women working in astronomy including:

- Organised highly successful national workshops for Women in Astronomy
- Conducted special sessions at the ASA Annual Science Meetings
- Organised ‘Meet-a-Mentor’ sessions at the ASA Annual Science Meetings
- Collated statistics on women in astronomy
- Lobbied for best practice for organisations in STEM, and
- Organised the Pleiades Award initiative with 12 Bronze and 2 Silver levels awarded to organisations over the past 2 years

The IDEA Chapter will be run by a steering committee that will play a leading role in devising and implementing initiatives to fulfil the Chapter’s goals.
The committee consists of a Chair, six steering committee members, a student representative, an ASA Council representative and an Early Career Researcher Chapter representative.
Terms are held for two years (full representatives) and one year (student representative).

We are now inviting nominations for three full committee members and one student representative by 5pm (AEDT) on 4th March.
These positions are open to all Chapter members and we particularly encourage members from diverse backgrounds to consider nominating for one of these positions.
Existing steering committee members can renominate if they wish. If there are more nominations than positions we will then ask the chapter members to vote online in due course.
ASA members are welcome to join the Chapter by registering at http://asawomeninastronomy.org/registration/

The election schedule is as follows:

- call for nominations: 19th February - 4th March
- election period: 7th - 18th March
- results announced: 22nd March
- new positions commence: 29th March

Please email your nomination to the Returning Officer for this election A/Prof Emma Ryan-Weber at eryanweber at swin.edu.au<mailto:eryanweber at swin.edu.au> as my role as secretary is also up for reelection.
Each nomination must include a brief paragraph summarising your interest in the position and how you envisage contributing to the broad goals of the Chapter.
Please note that this information will be made available to voters.

At this stage on behalf of the WiA committee I would like to thank Sarah Pearce, Andrew Walsh and our fantastic student rep Jessica Bloom, and will note that I too have reached
the end of my two year term and am stepping down. Sarah Brough will remain Chair for another year.

Kind regards,
Alan Duffy - WIA Secretary
Emma Ryan-Weber - Returning Officer
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